New Stuff

1. Lately I’ve not had the opportunity to get seriously geeky about camera gear, or gadgetry in general. But, I’m one step closer to getting my kit together with the purchase of this — an AF-S DX VR Zoom-Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G IF-ED (say that three times fast). Which looks like this:

2. I’ve been wanting to cut my kit down to bare essentials ever since I got back from Indonesia — I’m just sick of lugging all that stuff about. Now I’ve got a lens that will pretty much do everything except super-wideangle, which I don’t need most of the time, meaning I won’t need to change lenses much at all. So my kit now consists of:

3. …all of which fits nicely in my new LowePro Nova 3AW shoulder bag, which with the help of a couple of clips attaches itself to the front of my LowePro backpack (which will hold clothes and stuff). This combo will be great for short trips, and would probably do for a couple weeks in the tropics. On a test pack I crammed a pair of jeans, a pair of cargos, a pair of sneakers, a sweatshirt, 4 t-shirts, underwear and socks for a week, toiletries, medication, a small towel and my laptop in it. It’s a bloody black hole I tell ya.

4. So, the only thing left to buy now is a super-wideangle, and I’ve got my eye on either the Nikkor 12-24mm f4, or the Sigma 10-20mm F4.5-5.6. The Nikkor is the better of the two, but the Sigma is wider and half the price. That, and replacing my Canon Ixus 30 with an Olympus 770SW — it’s small and light, better in places where you don’t want to have a huge Nikon thief-magnet, and waterproof to 5m with no special housing — just the ticket the next time I get stuck on a raft in the middle of the sea getting pelted with rain and waves.

5. My first chance to road test the new combo will be in May, where a mate and I will be heading for the bright lights of Tokyo and making our way back on local trains. Think Sydney to Melbourne via local trains. Except more exciting.

March

1. It’s March 26th, one day away from the one year anniversary of my arrival in Japan. I’ve been thinking about that a lot over the last couple of weeks, thinking about all the things I’ve had to learn and adapt to. And all the things that I do now that I never thought I could do as well. I never thought I would like teaching, but I’m enjoying teaching immensely. I never thought I was any good with languages (well, I’m not, but that’s through lack of study rather than lack of talent), but I have picked up a bit of Japanese, and I’ve been remembering a lot of Cantonese as well. And who would’ve thought I’d even like the kids classes? I imagine a few of my friends have just fallen off their seats. Yep, I do fine with kids these days — a few even like me.

2. (One 3 year old likes me so much that her mum once asked me if I was her dad. Her mum! Mothers should not make those kinds of jokes. It’s just not cricket.)

3. (And speaking of cricket, we’ve been playing a few games of corridor cricket, one of the benefits of working with a Brit. If anyone wants to send me an inflatable cricket set, I’ll love you forever…)

4. Some things won’t change though; I completely forgot to renew my work visa, so I will have to do that today. That wouldn’t be such a big deal, if not for the fact that my visa runs out tomorrow.

5. I’ve been playing a lot of guitar right now, building my chops and my ears by listening and working out different songs. I haven’t enjoyed playing so much for ages now, and I’m looking for people to play with — I’ve already met a bunch of guitarists, bass players, trumpeters, saxophonists and harmonica players, which makes for one hell of a mix. And I’ll be adding guitar teaching to my rotisserie of talents, I’ll start teaching a class next week. Maybe I can turn that into another source of income… extra beer money!

6. Not much more to report for now. I’ve put up more photos on my portfolio site, look for the highlighted entries. I’m planning on spending my Golden Week holidays on a road/train trip to Tokyo with a friend — using the cheapest possible modes of transport and accomodation there and back. I’ll be writing about that, so stay tuned. The first of my Indonesia stories are ready, so I’ll be posting it as soon as I choose the accompanying photos. That rounds out this month, (I can sum up my entire month in less than 500 words. I lead an exciting life) more later.

Disgusting

1. From [WCCO](http://wcco.com/topstories/localstory064172908.html ):

An off-duty Northwest Airlines employee was arrested after a woman on a flight from Seattle complained that the man had ejaculated on her.

February

1. I once mentioned that the reason we drink ourselves to oblivion every weekend is because we don’t know what else to do — not being able to read Japanese makes it very difficult to browse the entertainment guides. But, I’m happy to say, we’ve started branching out, and the weekend is no longer solely devoted to breaking one’s liver (though, we still do that quite often).

2. Last week, my friend Dan and I wandered down to the river by the peace park and sat under the bridge and rocked out some blues — me on guitar and he on the harmonica. It was too damn cold to play for long outside, and we were quickly upstaged by a bunch of uber-cool Japanese lads cranking out Sting and other tunes. I can’t wait until spring comes, there’ll be tons of kids down by the river cranking out tunes. Sundays will be totally awesome.

3. Afterwards I went bowling. Yep, Ten Pin Bowling. It’s pretty popular here, and you can drink while you play! Drunk bowling is great, if somewhat embarrassing. You can count the drinks you’ve had by the number of gutter balls per game. You should try it some time.

4. What else was there? Ahh, yes, Valentines Day. Valentines runs a little different here than back home. Here, girls buy guys chocolate, and guys reciprocate by buying girls candy and cookies and stuff on March 14th, which is White Day. And it’s not solely people you really like, it’s co-workers and friends as well, so it’s kind of a nice day for everyone, rather than a miserable day for single people. I got 8 boxes of chocolates, so I got some White Day shopping to do (as well as some serious exercise to burn off the choco-fat).

5. That’s about it for February, which marks my 11th month in Japan. I’ve received my new contract, which I will sign tomorrow, and I have my papers together to renew my work visa here. So I’ll be here for another year at the very least, though I don’t see myself coming home permanently for some time yet. Sorry Mum.

New glasses!

New Glasses!

1. This has been a weekend of change — I got a haircut (short again, and for those who have seen it, not asymmetric. For those who have not seen the asymmetric haircut, think one side shorter than the other. People tell me I looked good in it. People are nice) and, these are my new glasses! Thus ends my Japan-assimilation program, I now sport Japanese glasses and haircut.